On Thursday, residents were scheduled to start moving into the new Chapel Hill homeless shelter at 1315 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
The Inter-Faith Council for Social Service, the town of Chapel Hill and the State Employees’ Credit Union’s work should be commended. Building a homeless shelter as modern and humane as this one is an admirable task, and some of Chapel Hill’s most vulnerable residents will benefit.
Unfortunately, a man’s-only homeless shelter is not a solution to homelessness, nor is it a permanent home. The town’s goal should be nothing short of eradicating homelessness.
Candidates for the office in Chapel Hill should make this a greater campaign priority. Increased public dialogue about homelessness would place greater pressure on the policy mechanisms of government.
The issue of homelessness has few political benefits due to the homeless having an unfortunate lack of leverage; nonetheless, the problem is one that is fundamental to the morality of this community.
The opening of the homeless shelter, much farther away from downtown than the old shelter, follows on the heels of tree removal in the 100 block of East Franklin Street. There are also fewer benches than before. Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership Executive Director Meg McGurk said changes to the trees were to make downtown more suited to a dense urban environment.
There is nothing at all to suggest the town did this with any antipathy toward the homeless, but the combination of these actions with the decentering of the homeless shelter creates the danger of moving the town’s homeless population out of sight.
The Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness, an initiative launched in 2007 that set a 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness in Orange County, is far from its goal and been inconsistent in posting annual reports.
And in the local election campaigns, these issues have largely been put at the periphery of conversations.
